We didn't break, we didn't burn
by lucklessdreamer
Summary: This is what happens next. Dan/Blair navigate their new relationship.
1. Chapter 1

This is what happens next:

Dan invites her in, properly.

Throws her coat over a stool and pulls a beer out of the fridge for her. He clinks his open bottle against hers and they both laugh.

Blair picks the movie (_It Happened One Night_) and Dan makes the popcorn.

It is like every other movie night they've shared in the loft. It's Blair's choice and Dan brings her snacks and they share the same space on the sofa.

It is the same. Only different.

Now their touches are deliberate, not accidental. Their flirting isn't innocent. And when Dan's arm snakes around her shoulders and she lays her head down on his chest, it isn't played off as a friendly gesture between two people who aren't really friends. There is no more mistaking their actions – they are pure and simple and promise so much more.

"When did you know?" Blair asks above the movie.

Her voice startles him into alertness, half-asleep from being lulled by her rhythmic breathing and the warmth of her body pressed against his.

"Know what?"

She pushes herself up and brings her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around herself. She ducks her head shyly, focusing on the material of the sofa rather than his curious gaze.

"When did you know you loved me? I know you haven't said it, but…"

Dan reaches out to her, carefully tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear. His hand lingers against her cheek and when she meets his eyes, he answers, "It was late in the afternoon. You were standing on your tip toes, back lit by the sun. You reached for a book and laughed. That's when I knew."

She releases the breath she was holding in, the latter half is caught in Dan's mouth.

Then she settles back against his chest.

They are both asleep by the time the credits roll.

-x-

Blair wakes to the smell of coffee.

She is aware of only three things: coffee, the brightness of the room, and Dan's arms securely around her.

Carefully, she opens her eyes to the bright sunshine. She nearly groans, but it's lost in her throat when she hears Rufus say, "Good morning!" cheerfully.

Blair shoots up and finds Rufus fixing breakfast in the kitchen and Lily perched on a stool sipping coffee.

She elbows Dan awake and stumbles over her explanation, "I was… We, um… I must have fallen asleep and…"

All three ignore her – Rufus concerned with waffles and Lily the paper and Dan with wiping the sleep from his eyes.

"Breakfast should be ready in five. Hope you're hungry."

Dan laughs and kisses her temple, as though he's woken up to something completely normal and they've done this a thousand times before.

Blair shoots him a deadly glare, bounding off the sofa and smoothing down her wrinkled clothes.

They all find their way to the table. Their plates overflow with waffles and eggs and bacon and their cups with hot coffee. Rufus and Lily fill them in on why they're there and Dan tells them a funny story about something that happened the other day and Blair gives up on glaring at Dan to laugh with the rest of them.

Blair thanks Rufus for breakfast and volunteers to do the dishes. Dan steps in to help, his fingers grazing the small of her back when he takes his place beside her at the sink.

"Good morning," she tells him, smiling up brightly at him when she hands him a plate to dry.

He smiles and then whispers against her lips, "good morning."

-x-

Dating Blair Waldorf isn't much different than being friends with Blair Waldorf.

They do everything they did when they were friends (and fake friends). They sip coffee as they walk through Central Park arguing about which movie to see (or exhibit to visit or book to read or song to add to their collection). Visits to the theatre and MoMA are regular occurrences in their week, as are pizza and movie nights at the loft.

But now when they walk, their hands are always linked together. And Blair always rests her head against his shoulder with her hand placed precariously high on his thigh when they are in a dark theatre. And they kiss in front of the Met and after a long day of traipsing all over the city, she'll rest her weight against Dan when as he studies a new piece at the Frick.

It's everything they were before. Only more.

One night, when they are alone in the loft, they do as they always find themselves doing on nights in: he orders a pizza and she picks _Breakfast at Tiffany's_ to watch. _Again_. Dan doesn't even complain (much) because she juts out her bottom lip in a pout and then attaches those lips of hers to his neck, sliding across the column of his throat before he can cement his argument for something else entirely.

With their bellies full of pizza and red wine, they are huddled together on the couch – Blair enraptured with the movie and Dan with the waves of dark hair down her back.

"I love this song," Blair murmurs wistfully when Audrey begins to sing Moon River.

Dan mutes the television and bounds off the sofa, ignoring Blair's protests.

It takes him a minute to find the record, but when he does it's not long before the beginning strains of Moon River are filling the loft.

He walks back to her and extends his hand, a smug smile drawing up the corner of his lips. "Dance with me."

It's not a question, so she places her hand in his and he pulls her up and into his arms. They slow dance across the hardwoods – bodies pressed close together as they move in perfect sync to the music.

Blair laughs when he dips her low enough that her hair sweeps against the floorboards.

He pulls her back to him, kisses her once on the mouth, and picks up where they left off.

"I didn't know it could be this easy," she says against his shoulder.

"What?"

He spins her and pulls her back in, smiles when he sees her flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes.

"This… love. I didn't know it could be like this – fun and simple and _easy_."

He presses his lips to hers, laughs as he says, "Maybe because you're doing it right this time."

Then he twirls her.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

They're both dizzy and laughing and the song has long been over, but they don't care.

-x-

The first time they have sex is, admittedly, a disaster.

He's too nervous and she's too eager and they can't get the rhythm right and they collapse into a mess of limbs and plush hotel linens, unsatisfied.

They dress in silence and refuse to meet the other's eyes.

He walks her home and moves to kiss her lips, but misses and ends up kissing her nose.

She just laughs and says, "Call me later, Humphrey."

-x-

When they come back together, they are both ready to concede defeat and shake on being friends again.

"Is this what you really want?" he asks, hand extended, poised and ready to seal this deal of theirs.

"How can this work if we can't…"

Dan's hand drops to his side. "I love you, Blair. We can make this work."

"What did you just say?"

"What?" he huffs.

"Say it again," she insists, stepping closer and pressing her palms against his chest.

"I love you?" He doesn't say it as a fact, but poses it as a question.

"Yes," she nods furiously, heart constricting her in chest. "You've never said it before."

"Jesus, Blair. Don't you know by now? That I'm so stupidly, helplessly in love with you?"

"Just… say it again."

"I love you."

Blair smiles – a dazzling, thousand-watt smile – that he barely catches a glimpse of because she's throwing her arms around his neck and crushing her lips to his.

They peel away layers of clothing. Stripped bare, she pulls him down to her bed and he covers her. Heat radiates between them – it grows and pulls and burns.

She wraps her body around his, urges him inside of her. He takes his time – studying her body and watching the gold flicker in her eyes. When he finally enters her, she stutters out his name in a breathy moan and he sighs "I love you" hotly against her ear before they begin to move in unison.

Their lips touch the entire time they move together, sharing the same breath, but their eyes are locked together until the current overtakes them and they are _drowning, drowning, drowning_… Eyes closed and clinging to one another as the pleasure pulls them under and rolls through them like waves.

This time, when they come together, it is nothing short of perfect.

-x-

Everything is fun and simple and easy.

Except for when it is not.

They argue (often) about films and books.

But then there are times when her insecurities over take her or his frustrations get the best of him and it all comes to a head.

Blair comes bursting into the loft late one Tuesday evening, heels clicking furiously across the floor and poison on her lips. "Were you going to tell me you were with _her_?"

Dan settles back into his chair and looks up at her expectantly from his laptop. "Am I suppose to know what you're talking about?"

"Serena!" she screeches. "It's always going to go back to her, isn't it? You're always going to pick her over me," she accuses him, her voice catching on the tears that she is fighting so furiously against.

Slowly, Dan picks himself up from his chair and rounds the table to stand before her. "Blair," he says calmly, gripping her arms, "_You_ are the one that I want to be with. You and no one else."

"But everyone always picks Serena ," she says weakly.

"Not me." He cups her chin with his hand and draws her eyes up to his. "I choose _you_, Blair."

And then her fears subside. Her insecurities fall into the back of her mind. And she is more certain of Dan's love for her than ever before.

But there are times when she is hurtful for no reason other than to be hurtful because it was who she was for so long. She uses precious things against him and spews names of exes at him like accusations.

And there are times when she says "Chuck" in a way that is meant to compare and cut. It always has him sighing and tugging on his hair in frustration, but leaving before either of them can say another word.

She always comes to him (though sometimes it takes her days to swallow down all of her pride) to slip her arms around him, bury her head in the spot where his shoulder meets his neck, and whisper apologies until he kisses her, forgiving all of her transgressions.

Then it is back to being easy.

Until it's hard again.


	2. Chapter 2

-x-

They celebrate Blair's annulment with a bottle of champagne. Blair laughs excitedly when she pops the cork and champagne spills over her fingers and the hardwoods.

"Here's to freedom!" she says, raising the bottle before taking a long drag.

She passes the bottle to Dan, he adds, "Here's to you," and takes a drink.

They take turns drinking from the bottle of champagne until it's empty and their fingers are sticky and their kisses are sloppy.

"It feels good not to be married anymore," she admits when they lay naked on his bedroom floor. She rolls on top of him, straddling his hips and groaning when he thrusts upwards.

"It looks good on you, too," he says huskily, sitting up and pushing his fingers through her hair, drawing her mouth to his. "Welcome back, Blair Waldorf." He traces the line of her shoulder with his mouth.

"Thanks for keeping me all this time and reminding me who I am."

"_Always_."

She lifts up and sinks down onto him, sighing happily into the darkness when they are connected completely.

It's late into the morning when Dan pulls himself out of bed, the taste of champagne and Blair still on his tongue.

-x-

He finds her in the living room, perched on the edge of the sofa. Her hair, in messy waves, shadows her face as she reads the paper and sips coffee out of a chipped mug. Her knees are drawn up to her chest and she is swallowed up by one of his t-shirts he left discarded on his bedroom floor the other day.

Blair looks up when she hears the floorboards creak beneath his weight. She smiles at the sight of him, rustled hair and pajamas riding low on his hips. "I made coffee!" she chirps.

Dan raises an eyebrow and looks at her suspiciously.

"Shut up, Humphrey. I do know how to work an appliance as simple as your coffee maker. It's good. Promise."

He pours himself a cup and settles beside her on the sofa. He takes a cautious sip before another long one.

"I told you," she sing-songs.

"Blair Waldorf can make coffee. Who knew?"

She drops the newspaper to the ground and slugs his arm, hard.

"You know, I'm beginning to think you like the same things as common people like making coffee and waking up in Brooklyn." He leans in and skates his lips across her shoulder where his t-shirt has slipped and left an expanse of bare skin.

"And what if I am?" she murmurs breathily, her heart beginning to kick at the feel of his mouth against her skin.

"I like it."

"I like you," she whispers into his ear, nuzzling his jaw, eyes closed as she breathes him in.

Blair places her mug on the edge of the coffee table and Dan catches sight of the two glittering rings taking residence on the corner. It seems strange – a $15 thrift store find as the resting place for things more expensive than he can wrap his mind around.

"You took them off."

Blair shrugs. "I'm not married anymore."

He picks up her left hand and presses a kiss to the spot where her finger his now bare. "I like this, too."

"Promise you still love me?"

His brow furrows at her question, caught off guard by her sudden vulnerability, but he recovers enough to sweep her hair out of her face and cup the side of her face with his palm. "I'll love you no matter what."

Smiling, she buries her head in the crook of his neck. "Good. Because I love you no matter what, Humphrey."

-x-

Dorota gives birth to a boy in the spring.

Blair is there. Dan, too.

When the baby is swaddled in blue, he is handed to Blair and she carefully cradles him in her arms. She is tense at first, unsure of the unfamiliar weight of a baby, but when he yawns, she smiles and relaxes.

There is a beat of peace, but it is followed quickly by a wave of emptiness – it hits her unexpectedly; a sucker punch of what she doesn't have and it sends her reeling.

"Take him, Dan," she says hurriedly as she pushes the baby into his arms and rushes out of the room.

She pauses at the door, just for a second, to see Dan making silly faces at the baby and another wave hits, more powerful than before, and she tears out of the hospital as fast as her heels will take her.

-x-

Dan finds her on the floor of her bedroom, her eyes red-rimmed from crying and an opened box beside her.

He approaches carefully and lowers himself to the ground beside her.

"I know it's hard," he tells her softly.

She sniffles and wipes furiously at her eyes. "I feel so silly."

"Don't." He covers her hand with his.

"I never thought about being a mother until I got pregnant. Not really. But then there was a baby and I was its mother. One second I had all of these things, I was this _one thing_, and the next second, nothing."

The tears come again and Dan wipes them away with the pads of his thumbs. There is nothing for him to say – nothing that can ease her pain – so he settles for holding her close and stroking her hair.

They remain that way for minutes, or maybe hours, until Blair hooks a finger in the box and pulls it closer to them.

"I was thinking I could give all of these things to Dorota."

Dan peers into the box and discovers carefully folded baby clothes in shades of yellow and green.

Blair reaches for a tiny hat, white with a yellow duck embroidered on it. Her fingers stroke the fabric lovingly and she smiles.

"After I found out I was pregnant and admitted it to… well, you, I started collecting some things for the baby. I'd wander into a store and let myself pick one thing. Just one. And then I'd tuck it away into this box and imagine the day my baby could wear these things."

Dan's fingers trail over a onesie in the box, one with pale green stripes (it reminds him of something Milo wore once. It causes him to smile and feel an ache in his chest all at once). "Maybe you don't have to give all of these things to Dorota."

She looks up at him, eyes wet and curious. "What am I going to do with them?"

He shrugs. "Save them? Keep them for the day when you do have a baby and become a mother."

"Do you really think I'll get another chance?"

"I know so." He kisses her temple and returns everything to the box. He puts the lid back on and she ties a ribbon perfectly around it before sliding it under her bed.

-x-

"I don't know what I'd do without you," she admits later in the dark, her voice barely a whisper.

His hand finds hers, twisting his fingers through hers. He doesn't need to open his eyes to know hers on him. He smiles and can feel her do the same.

Blair leans a little closer, presses her lips to his ear, and tells him carefully, "you're a good man, Dan Humphrey."

He wraps her up in his arms and falls asleep when he knows she is too.

-x-

They spend their summer traveling.

He goes to California for inspiration.

She goes to France to see her father.

They meet in Madrid just before summer comes to an end.

"I've missed you!" Blair cries when she sees him at the train station for the first time in two months. His hair is shorter and his jaw is scruffier and his skin is tanner. But he's still _hers_, so she throws her arms around him and peppers his face with kisses.

They spend their first night in Spain drinking red wine and making love. There is music and laughing below their window, but it doesn't entice them enough to leave their room. They have a lot of lost time to make up for.

The second day Dan follows Blair from store to store until he's had enough and insists they be tourists. They discover the city, hand-in-hand, and Dan makes her stop every fifteen feet to take a picture.

"I want to remember this. All of it," he tells her each and every time she complains.

The rest of the week follows in the same way: sight-seeing and shopping and eating. They stay up late each night to drink wine and dance in the streets.

One night, when the food is too good and the wine is too delicious and the air is too hot, he pulls her into an alley way. There's no time to get back to their hotel, so he bunches up her skirt in his hands and enters her hard and fast against a brick wall that is covered in shadows.

He pushes her breast out of her dress so he can draw circles with his tongue around her nipple and she reaches between them, rubbing furiously at her clit, keeping time with his quick thrusts into her.

No one can even hear her cry out his name over the sound of the music when she comes.

Her legs are unsteady when she unhooks them from around his hips, so she leans on him the whole back to the hotel. He doesn't mind the burden.

-x-

After a week in Madrid, Blair declares she needs a change of scenery. So they pack their suitcases and take the first train to Barcelona.

On the train, Dan sheepishly places a stack of papers, held together by two rubber bands, on her lap.

"What's this?"

"My new book. You'll be the first to read it."

Blair spends the rest of the train ride and their first day at beach devouring his book.

At dinner, he anxiously awaits her review.

"So," he prods, "tell me what you think. Honestly."

She quirks up an eyebrow and he laughs, "I guess I should expect nothing less."

"Honestly? I loved it. It's new and exciting and I think it's some of your best work yet."

"Really?"

"Yes. I mean, it's lacking a little since I'm not the star…" she teases.

"I don't have to write about you anymore. I've got the real thing now and you are beyond what my words could do justice."

"Oh, I don't know about that, Humphrey." She reaches under the table and inches her fingers along his thigh. "I do think it's time we reenact that Clair/Dylan love scene and see just how much justice your words do us."

Dan snatches her hand and places it against his growing erection. "I think that's the best idea you've had today."

She licks her lips and smiles deviously, stroking him through his pants.

They find their way back to the hotel and Blair makes him recite every word of the scene from _Inside _while she rides him, hands on his chest to steady herself as she sinks slowly over him, again and again. He raises his voice to compete with her moans, the view (miles of sun-kissed skin, dark hair in waves around her shoulders, and parted red lips) makes him stumble over the words he's written out a hundred times before.

"So?" she asks through unsteady breaths after they've both come and they're tangled together.

He laughs as he licks at her collarbone. "Words will never do us justice."

-x-

Before going home they make a detour to France so that Blair can say goodbye to her father one more time.

They eat dinner together on the patio with the sun setting.

"So, sweetheart, what are your plans for when you go back to New York?" her dad asks her over dessert.

"I've enrolled in classes at Columbia for the fall," she tells them quietly. She meets Dan's eyes across the table and when he smiles proudly, she tells them all what's signed up to take and how excited she is to be going back to school.

After dinner, while Blair is packing her suitcase, Dan is perched on the side of her bed and asks, "Why didn't you tell me before that you're going back to school?"

She ignores him and focuses on folding her blouse perfectly.

Dan comes up behind her, runs his hands down her arms. "Blair," he prods.

Sagging into him, she lets out a breath. "I was embarrassed."

"What do you have to be embarrassed about?"

She turns in his arms. "What have I done in the last year? Dropped out of school to be a princess, got pregnant, didn't know who the father was, married a man who didn't love me, had an affair, and got an annulment. Not exactly a stellar year for Blair Waldorf and certainly not one to be proud of."

He drops a kiss to the top of her head. "I'm proud of you."

"You have to say that," she pouts, "you're the one I had the affair with."

Dan laughs. "Then we're just going to have to make this year count twice as much as last year."

-x-

When they return to New York, Chuck is waiting for her with peonies and pleas.

Blair asks Dan to leave her suitcases and then the penthouse so she may be alone with this other man. He goes with a fleeting kiss to her cheek and a warning glance at Chuck.

Chuck tells her all of the things she's heard dozens of times before: he loves her, they belong together, no one can make her happy like he can.

But she's so tired from the flight and she swears she can still taste the champagne they drank at dinner the night before and she's certain her skin is still buzzing from where Dan's hands were that it's all lost on her.

Finally, her eyes are just so heavy and she's longing to be asleep with Dan at the loft, that she tells Chuck he needs to leave.

"He'll never love you like I do," he warns her.

"You're right," she sighs. "And that's why I should be with him and not you."

-x-

It is late in the afternoon when Blair makes it to Brooklyn. The summer sun is beginning to sink, casting a golden glow throughout the loft.

She finds Dan asleep on the sofa. Blair tiptoes carefully across the room and kneels down on the floor beside him. Her fingers dance softly across his jaw and she smiles warmly when his eyes flutters open.

"Hi," she whispers.

"Hi."

"It was early one morning. The sun was barely up and it was cold. You pressed a cup of coffee into my hands and your fingers brushed against mine. That's when I knew."

"Knew what?"

"That I loved you."

She leans and kisses him. He makes room for her on the sofa and she joins him, pressing her body against closely against his.

"You came back."

"Of course I did. There's nowhere else I'd rather be."

"Then a loft in Brooklyn?" he asks skeptically.

She sighs in frustration and grudgingly admits, though she mumbles, "then a loft in Brooklyn." Her lips skate across his neck and she adds, "and here with you."

They fall asleep wrapped up in each other and don't wake until morning.

-x-

Summer gives way to fall.

The leaves turn and the air grows cold.

Dan's new book hits the shelves and Blair attends Columbia.

They do homework together in her bedroom and he reads reviews of his book to her over coffee in the park and they attend movies and argue over which exhibit to see next (Blair wins. She _always_ wins). They eat way too much pizza and drink way too much coffee and watch _Breakfast at Tiffany's _too many times to count in the span of one semester.

There is almost as much arguing as there is pizza. But there's also a lot of dancing and laughing and love making, so it all evens out.

-x-

This is what happens next:

Everything.


End file.
